T.S. Eliot on “Distraction”
Distraction is one of the devil’s chief weapons in his warfare against men’s souls. The devil plays into our human weakness for the trivial and the temporal, and the more trivial the distraction, the better.
T.S. Eliot in the first of his Four Quartets says of us, “human kind cannot bear very much reality…”
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Human creatures are temporal creatures—we are created to be bound by time. But instead of being wise in the face of our obvious temporality, and letting that truth take us to eternal things, we have a tendency to be distracted by the “latest”, thinking that it must be the “greatest”. Distraction functions like a drug that anesthetizes us from the painful reality of our mortality.
But, true Gospel wisdom teaches us to number our days, so that we may present to God a heart of wisdom.
Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective”.
You have placed our iniquities before You,
Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.
For all our days have declined in Your fury;
We have finished our years like a sigh.
As for the days of our life, they contain 70 years,
Or if due to strength, eighty years,
Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow;
For soon it is gone and we fly away.
Who understands the power of Your anger
And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?
So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.
Do return, O LORD; how long will it be?
And be sorry for Your servants.
O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness,
That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Make us glad according to the days
You have afflicted us,
And the years we have seen evil.
Let Your work appear to Your servants
And Your majesty to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands.~Psalm 90:8-17 NASB
